Changing channels: Cuts to impact Seacoast viewers

Friday

Sep 21, 2012 at 2:00 AMSep 21, 2012 at 2:02 AM

NORTH HAMPTON — The fallout from the University System of New Hampshire's budget cuts enacted in 2011 continues, as the cutbacks have forced the system to suspend its support of New Hampshire Public Television.

Shir Haberman

NORTH HAMPTON — The fallout from the University System of New Hampshire's budget cuts enacted in 2011 continues, as the cutbacks have forced the system to suspend its support of New Hampshire Public Television.

In an attempt to deal with a dramatic reduction in funding, NHPTV has chosen to collaborate with WGBH Boston and this month Comcast notified the North Hampton Select Board that the Boston public television station will no longer be on the system's lineup beginning in mid-October.

That information got an immediate and negative reaction from the town's selectmen.

"I'd like to know why it was taken off," said Selectman Phil Wilson. "It was certainly not at the request of the customers."

"We made these changes to accommodate requests from these two stations (WGBH and New Hampshire Public Television)," Goodman said.

NHPTV had received approximately $2.7 million, or about 31 percent of its budget, from the state through funding for the university system. In response to the legislative cuts, NHPTV reduced its staff by 20 full-time positions, canceled its locally produced shows "NH Outlook" and "Granite State Challenge," and reduced salaries and benefits for its remaining employees.

The local public television station also hired consultants to assess its options.

Those consultants said that "it was critically important that we start to seek alliances," NHPTV President and Chief Executive Peter Frid told Current.org, a Web site that covers public media nationally.

That mandate lead to the collaboration with WGBH, one of the premier public television stations in the country, that was announced last month.

"We get the opportunity, in effect, to create scale together, so that more of the resources to the region can go into programming," Frid told Current.org in an August interview.

NHPTV disassociated itself from the university system in July of this year and now this collaboration with WGBH is expected to provide operational economies, which, the station says in information on its Web site, "are key to NHPTV's continued success following the loss of its state funding."

The two stations will remain separate entities, but NHPTV has contracted broadcast technologies, membership services and financial administration from the Boston channel.

"What this is about is aligning resources so we can think in terms of growth," Frid said.

However, it means a realignment of broadcast scheduling and the shifting of channels throughout the state, as well as the removal of WGBH Channels 2 and 802 from the Comcast lineup.

On or shortly after Oct. 8, NHPTV Prime will move from Channel 11 to Channel 2, NHPTV Explore will move from Channel 296 to Channel 11 and NHPTV Prime HD will move from Channel 801 to Channel 802 and be replaced by NHPTV Explore HD on Channel 801, Comcast announced.

NHPTV Prime, the home of the main PBS schedule, features such shows as "American Experience," "American Masters," "Antique Roadshow," "Frontline," "Great Performances," "History Detectives," "Masterpiece," "Market Warriors," "Nature" and "NOVA," "PBS NewsHour" and "This Old House," as well as British comedies and PBS Kids programming. It will also be the home of New Hampshire-focused programs such as the returning "Granite State Challenge," the station's Web site indicated.

NHPTV Explore will be a second, full-time public television channel for New Hampshire featuring alternate broadcast times for key PBS programs and locally focused independent programs, as well "Globe Trekker" and British programs such as "Doc Martin" and "Lark Rise to Candleford."

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